ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Certainly there hasn't been any love loss between St. Louis Cardinals fans and their catcher Yadier Molina, but for the first time in nearly a decade, there's a new most-popular Cardinals jersey.
No. 4 has been surpassed by No. 28.
MLB.com just released its annual list of the most popular player jerseys entering Opening Day 2021 and the new Cardinals superstar third baseman, Nolan Arenado, is the highest of any St. Louis player. It's the first time since 2012 that Molina's jersey isn't No. 1 among Cardinals players.
This year, Molina has the No. 15 best-selling jersey and Arenado is No. 11 in all of baseball.
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The last player to beat Molina was David Freese, who was just coming off the biggest home run in Cardinals history. You might remember Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. Freese was No. 12 and Molina was No. 18 on the 2012 list.
Going back through the annual lists, Molina's jersey has ranked as high as No. 6 in all of baseball in 2014, only Derek Jeter, Buster Posey, Clayton Kershaw, David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia were ahead of him that year.
This might be Molina's last season in St. Louis and a sign of the new era in Cardinals baseball might be seeing No. 28 around Busch Stadium a little bit more often than No. 4.
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